Grosse Weine – Unser Leben / Grand Wines – Our Lives is a wonderful coffee table book, which Wilhelm Weil produced as a birthday gift for his friend and right hand man, Weingut Robert Weil’s Deputy Managing Director, Jochen Becker-Köhn. Along with other wine friends, I contributed to the book.

The Story Behind the Book

2 years ago, I received a package from Wilhelm Weil, with a bottle of his outstanding ultra-premium wines, and 2 sets of Skat cards, which had “Weingut Robert Weil” in the light-blue “Robert Weil label color” on the back.

Skat is arguably the most popular German card game. It was developed in the early 1980s in Altenburg in Thiringia, Germany, based on the three-player game of Tarock and the four-player game of Schafkopf. As a student, I used to play Skat a couple of times per week in the evening.

In a letter, Wilhelm Weil explained why he had sent me the wine bottle and the Skat cards and what his plan was: His right hand man and close friend for many, many years, Jochen Becker-Köhn, was turning 60 in August 2015 and his idea was to put together a picture book for him, with pictures from people who know Jochen, drinking Weingut Robert Weil wine and playing Skat with the Weil Skat cards. Wilhelm Weil invited me and Annette to support the project.

My Photo Submissions

Well, I found it a great idea. In the following months, wherever I travelled, I was looking for an opportunity to shoot a picture for the Jochen Becker-Köhn book. I managed to submit two photos and both made it into the book.

The first one was taken in Singapore, with the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel in the back.

Picture: Annette and Christian Schiller in Singapore, with the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel in the Back

The second one was taken in Montreux, at the 2014 Digital Wine Communications Conference, with Jancis Robinson.

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About Me

I live in the greater Washington DC (US) and Frankfurt am Main (Germany) areas and write about wine. I am a member of the FIJEV (International Federation of Wine and Spirits Journalists and Writers). Before starting to write about wine in 2009, I was for almost 30 years an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I am currently in Washington DC.